Free Thinking - The influence of the British Black Art movement.

Arts & Ideas

Artists Sonia Boyce, Isaac Julien, Eddie Chambers and Harold Offeh talk to Anne McElvoy about their art and the influence of the British Black Art movement - which began around the time of the First National Black Art Convention in 1982 organised by the Blk Art Group and held at Wolverhampton Polytechnic.

Eddie Chambers has written Roots and Culture: Cultural Politics in the Making of Black Britain and Black Artists in British Art: A History Since the 1950s. He teaches at the University of Texas, Austin. Sonia Boyce is Professor at Middlesex University, a Royal Academician and will also have a solo show at the ICA later this year. She is one of the recipients of a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award. She is also the Principal-Investigator of the Black Artists & Modernism project. Isaac Julien is showing Other Destinies at the Royal Ontario Museum from January and shows at Victoria Miro Gallery. Harold Offeh is an artist, curator and senior lecturer in Fine Art at Leeds Beckett University. His work Covers will feature in Untitled: art on the conditions of our time.

Nottingham Contemporary's The Place Is Here brings together around 100 works by over 30 artists and collectives spanning painting, sculpture, installation, photography, video and archival displays from the 1980s. It runs from 04 Feb - 30 Apr 2017

New Art Exchange’s exhibition, Untitled: art on the conditions of our time, runs from 14 Jan - 19 Mar 2017 and features 12 British artists each with ties to Africa.

Producer: Karl Bos Editor: Robyn Read